The Secret Life of Bees
The stunning multi-million bestselling novel about a young girl's journey; poignant, uplifting and unforgettable
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4.2 • 167 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A QUEEN'S READING ROOM PICK 2023
'I adored The Secret Life of Bees and The Invention Of Wings, which were both wise, charming and sensual' SANTA MONTEFIORE
The Secret Life of Bees: The multi-million-copy bestselling novel about a young girl's journey towards healing and the transforming power of love, from the award-winning author of The Invention of Wings.
Lily has grown up believing she accidentally killed her mother when she was four years old. Now, at fourteen, she yearns for forgiveness and a mother's love. Living on a peach farm in South Carolina with her harsh and unforgiving father, she has only one friend, Rosaleen, a black servant.
When racial tension explodes one summer afternoon, and Rosaleen is arrested and beaten, Lily chooses to flee with her. Fugitives from justice, the pair follow a trail left by the woman who died ten years before. Finding sanctuary in the home of three beekeeping sisters, Lily starts a journey as much about her understanding of the world as about the mystery surrounding her mother.
'A wonderful book, by turns sad, full of incident and shot through with grown-up magic reminiscent of Joanne Harris' Daily Telegraph
'Charming, funny, moving' The Times
'Wonderfully written, powerful, poignant . . . read it' Joanna Trollope
What readers are saying about The Secret Life of Bees:
'One of the most poignant and heart tugging books I have ever read' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'Emotional and heart-breaking, yet full of hope and love. I laughed and cried equally through the book. This wonderful book will stay with me for a long time to come' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'One of the best books I've read in a while. Touching, well-written, beautiful, full of expression, insightful' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'A beautifully written masterpiece. I loved the writing, the descriptions, the humour sprinkled through the story. There was sadness and love, hope and forgiveness. I highly recommend this book' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A bookish teen in 1960s South Carolina, Lily Owens is haunted by moonlit bees that appear in her room after dark—and by the nagging sense that she was responsible for her mother’s death a decade earlier. As Lily strives to silence her inner turmoil, she witnesses the battle for civil rights in the region, learns about the arcane art of beekeeping and connects with a group of strong black women who offer a sense of family. Through her protagonist's emotional journey, American author Sue Monk Kidd lets us experience the bittersweetness of letting go.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Honey-sweet but never cloying, this debut by nonfiction author Kidd (The Dance of the Dissident Daughter) features a hive's worth of appealing female characters, an offbeat plot and a lovely style. It's 1964, the year of the Civil Rights Act, in Sylvan, S.C. Fourteen-year-old Lily is on the lam with motherly servant Rosaleen, fleeing both Lily's abusive father T. Ray and the police who battered Rosaleen for defending her new right to vote. Lily is also fleeing memories, particularly her jumbled recollection of how, as a frightened four-year-old, she accidentally shot and killed her mother during a fight with T. Ray. Among her mother's possessions, Lily finds a picture of a black Virgin Mary with "Tiburon, S.C." on the back so, blindly, she and Rosaleen head there. It turns out that the town is headquarters of Black Madonna Honey, produced by three middle-aged black sisters, August, June and May Boatwright. The "Calendar sisters" take in the fugitives, putting Lily to work in the honey house, where for the first time in years she's happy. But August, clearly the queen bee of the Boatwrights, keeps asking Lily searching questions. Faced with so ideally maternal a figure as August, most girls would babble uncontrollably. But Lily is a budding writer, desperate to connect yet fiercely protective of her secret interior life. Kidd's success at capturing the moody adolescent girl's voice makes her ambivalence comprehensible and charming. And it's deeply satisfying when August teaches Lily to "find the mother in (herself)" a soothing lesson that should charm female readers of all ages.
